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Saraswati Park

Saraswati Park
  • Author(s): Anjali Jospeh
  • Location(s): Mumbai (Bombay)
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Modern

Famous for its electric chaos, the city of Bombay also accommodates pockets of calm. In one such space works Mohan, a contemplative man who has spent his life observing people from his seat as a letter-writer outside the main...

Scoop-Wallah: Life on a Delhi Daily

Scoop-Wallah: Life on a Delhi Daily
  • Author(s): Justine Hardy
  • Location(s): Delhi
  • Genre(s): Autobiography/Memoirs
  • Era(s): Modern

Though born and educated in England, Justine Hardy spends more time thinking of India than of her home. “When I cannot sleep in London I have waking dreams peopled by the characters who inhabit my life in Delhi, and...

Sculpting the Elephant

Sculpting the Elephant
  • Author(s): Sylvia Vetta
  • Location(s): North India
  • Genre(s): Historical, Romance
  • Era(s): 1980s and 1880s

Harry King, artist and antiques dealer, thinks he has just made the worst purchase of his life – an enormous Victorian chest of drawers filled with ancient newspapers and bric-a-brac that now takes up half his shop. But when...

Sea of Poppies

Sea of Poppies
  • Author(s): Amitav Ghosh
  • Location(s): China, India, The Indian Ocean
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Historical
  • Era(s): Early and mid 19th Century

At the heart of this epic saga, set just before the Opium Wars, is an old slaving-ship, The Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its crew a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies...

Sylvia

Sylvia
  • Author(s): Maithreyi Karnoor
  • Location(s): Karnataka, Goa
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Contemporary

Longing to connect to his ancestral roots, Cajetan Pereira has taken up residence near one of the rare and mystical Baobab trees in South India. Into his world walks Sylvia, a young woman in search of a story. They...

Teatime for the Firefly

Teatime for the Firefly
  • Author(s): Shona Patel
  • Location(s): Assam
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Historical, Romance
  • Era(s): 1940s

Assam comes to life through Layla’s eyes and when she moves to Aynakhal, and excellently brings to life the colonial society of the tea plantations. Atmospheric and a beautiful portrayal of what love means.

Tell a Thousand Lies

Tell a Thousand Lies
  • Author(s): Rasana Atreya
  • Location(s): India
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1980s

In a land where skin colour can determine one’s destiny, fraternal twins PULLAMMA and LATA are about to embark on a journey that will tear their lives apart. Dark skinned Pullamma dreams of being a wife. With three girls...

The Artist of Disappearance

The Artist of Disappearance
  • Author(s): Anita Desai
  • Location(s): India
  • Genre(s): Novella, Short Stories
  • Era(s): Various

A triptych of beautifully crafted novellas make up Anita Desai’s exquisite new book. Set in modern India, but where history still casts a long shadow, the stories move beyond the cities to places still haunted by the past, and...

The Backpacker

The Backpacker
  • Author(s): John Harris
  • Location(s): Australia, India, South East Asia
  • Genre(s): Autobiography/Memoirs, Travelogue
  • Era(s): Modern

Leaving the blinding sand for the cool shade of the trees, I walked carefully through the undergrowth to where Dave, using two twigs as chopsticks, was picking up a freshly severed human finger… John’s trip to India starts badly...

The Beautiful and the Damned

The Beautiful and the Damned
  • Author(s): Siddhartha Deb
  • Location(s): India
  • Genre(s): Short Stories
  • Era(s): Modern

If you have ever felt peeved at the application process for an Indian visa, your pain will be contextualised by Siddhartha Deb’s administrative nightmare in India, which began in an unfeasibly long queue under an unfeasibly hot sun, and...

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